Follow the money. Watch the rankings.
The Opportunity Scholarship has grown 9.0x in five years. While that was happening, NC's teacher pay ranking dropped 10 spots and the state landed dead last in per-pupil funding effort. Here's what the trend lines actually look like, side by side.
Voucher funding, by year
From $48M in 2019–20 to $432M in 2024–25. That's 9.0x growth in five years. The 2025–26 estimate is NC's own budget allocation.
Meanwhile, NC's public schools keep slipping
NC's average teacher pay rank fell from #33 to #43 over the same period voucher spending grew 9.0x. That's ten states' worth of downward movement. And teacher pay is the good number.
Religious vs. not
85% of every voucher dollar since 2019–20 has gone to a school with a religious affiliation. The school split is 72% religious. So religious schools are over-represented in where the money actually lands.
Tuition, grouped
The Tier-1 voucher tops out at $7,942. Roughly a third of schools with published tuition land within 20% of that ceiling... a pretty crowded neighborhood for a coincidence.
204 of 388 schools with known tuition charge at or below the Tier-1 voucher. For the 63 schools charging $15,000 or more, the voucher covers less than half of tuition. The rest comes from families. (343 schools haven't published a tuition number.)
If you live here, what 'choice' are we talking about?
"School choice" only works if there's a school to choose. 13 of NC's 100 counties have zero voucher-taking schools. Another 9 have exactly one. For 40 counties, the menu has two items or fewer.
Davie County's single voucher-taking school has collected $50,038 in six years. Wake County, by contrast, has pulled in $73.8M... that's 1,475x more. Same state. Same program.
A note on what "zero schools" means: these counts reflect schools that actually accepted Opportunity Scholarship vouchers (2019–20 through 2024–25). A county might have private schools that simply don't participate in the program. Either way, if you live in one of the 13 zero-school counties, the voucher isn't buying you a seat anywhere nearby.
Who's actually using the voucher?
In 2024–25, 91.6% of Opportunity Scholarship recipients were already enrolled in private school the year before. The voucher wasn't how they got in.
The program was pitched as a way for public-school families to access private options they couldn't otherwise afford. The most recent pipeline data shows something different. Of roughly 80,000 voucher recipients in 2024–25, only about 8% transferred in from a public school. The rest were already paying private tuition.
Where the schools and the dollars concentrate. Useful for lookup, not part of the story above.
Top 10 counties by voucher-taking schools
Top 10 counties by voucher dollars received
Schools where the 2024-25 voucher count blew up overnight
These are the biggest single-year increases in voucher accounts tied to one school address, from the 2023-24 JLEOC report to the 2024-25 JLEOC report. Real state dollars, real state ledger. Some of this is the income cap coming off and the program actually growing. Some of it is almost certainly one building processing vouchers for kids who are elsewhere... online, satellite, co-op. I’m not going to tell you which is which school by school. I don’t know. Here are the numbers. Draw your own conclusions.
| School · county | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | Δ new | % jump | $ paid 24-25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Northeast Academy Lasker, Northampton | 88 | 967 | +879 | +1,000% | $4M |
Grace Covenant Academy Cornelius, Mecklenburg | 25 | 898 | +873 | +3,490% | $5M |
Millersville Christian Academy Taylorsville, Alexander | 157 | 961 | +804 | +510% | $5M |
Covenant Day School Matthews, Mecklenburg | 54 | 741 | +687 | +1,270% | $3M |
Genesis Christian School Fayetteville, Cumberland | 13 | 699 | +686 | +5,280% | $4M |
Walton Academy Greenville, Pitt | 15 | 682 | +667 | +4,450% | $3M |
Carmel Christian School Matthews, Mecklenburg | 38 | 637 | +599 | +1,580% | $3M |
Charlotte Christian School Charlotte, Mecklenburg | 24 | 608 | +584 | +2,430% | $2M |
Hill Learning Center Durham, Durham | 15 | 557 | +542 | +3,610% | $3M |
Fellowship Baptist Academy Durham, Durham | 100 | 631 | +531 | +530% | $4M |
Calvary Day School Winston-Salem, Forsyth | 119 | 642 | +523 | +440% | $3M |
Weddington Christian Academy Weddington, Union | 2 | 522 | +520 | +26,000% | $3M |
Friends-Montessori School Woodfin, Buncombe | 6 | 503 | +497 | +8,280% | $3M |
University Christian High School Hickory, Catawba | 10 | 490 | +480 | +4,800% | $3M |
WH Johnston SDA School Hickory, Catawba | 19 | 469 | +450 | +2,370% | $2M |
Top 15 schools by 2024-25 voucher enrollment
Same ledger, different cut. These are the schools with the most voucher accounts paid against their address in 2024-25. Spoiler... most of the names you just saw in the jumps table are here too.
| School · county | Voucher accounts | $ paid 24-25 |
|---|---|---|
Northeast Academy Lasker, Northampton | 967 | $4M |
Millersville Christian Academy Taylorsville, Alexander | 961 | $5M |
Grace Covenant Academy Cornelius, Mecklenburg | 898 | $5M |
Covenant Day School Matthews, Mecklenburg | 741 | $3M |
Genesis Christian School Fayetteville, Cumberland | 699 | $4M |
Walton Academy Greenville, Pitt | 682 | $3M |
Concord Academy Concord, Cabarrus | 646 | $4M |
Calvary Day School Winston-Salem, Forsyth | 642 | $3M |
Carmel Christian School Matthews, Mecklenburg | 637 | $3M |
Fellowship Baptist Academy Durham, Durham | 631 | $4M |
Burlington Christian Academy Burlington, Alamance | 610 | $3M |
Charlotte Christian School Charlotte, Mecklenburg | 608 | $2M |
Hill Learning Center Durham, Durham | 557 | $3M |
Life Spring Academy Clayton, Johnston | 533 | $3M |
Weddington Christian Academy Weddington, Union | 522 | $3M |